


Last Night I Dreamt One Thousand Lives

by rivlee



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, M/M, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 17:36:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1787347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivlee/pseuds/rivlee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Sam is an Angel of Death and Bucky is the sort-of-Vampire who loves him and eternity is complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Night I Dreamt One Thousand Lives

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://antiquecompass.tumblr.com/post/87748444010/sam-bucky-either-vamp-au-or-wing-au) for an anon who requested Sam/Bucky vampire!au or wing!au. This is the cleaned up/slightly expanded version. Title from The Wallflowers' _Nearly Beloved_.

There was a cracked and peeling picture of St. Lorenzo hanging above the doorway to the kitchen. Sam wondered if it would be crass to tell them the picture didn’t bear a single likeness to the real man. His nose twitched as he recalled the smell of burning flesh. Sam turned to stare at the basket of buffalo wings in front of him and casually pushed it to the side. The bar was an actual shithole, but it was the best place in fifty miles to get some decent whiskey and Sam was too tired to fly anymore tonight. 

He’d drop a barrier line of oak dust on the floor; not that anyone would notice it amidst the peanut shells and not-so-mysterious stains littering the peeling linoleum. He wasn’t in the mood to dredge up his ability to make small talk. It took all his concentration just to hold on to this human form. No one could cross the line unless Sam allowed it; they’d all suddenly find a pressing reason to be elsewhere. The barrier allowed him to relax for a moment. A truly insignificant speck of time in the grander scheme of things and his life, but he knew well that often the small moments were what kept you alive. 

Even heavenly beings like himself had hearts that could stop beating.

"How does an angel like you end up in a place like this?"

Sam glanced up from his drink into the face of the creature now called James Barnes. He had sunglasses over his eyes, and a smile that showed just a hint of fangs. He looked just as youthful as ever, his skin glowing even in the dull yellow light around them.

There was a reason Caravaggio had once stalked him through the streets. James had the ability to make even the dullest and drabbest places feel warm, and he’d always attracted the worst of trouble. Sam wasn’t too old to forget just how well chaos followed in his wake. It was a rush, to battle alongside him, and feel _alive_ in a way so often forgotten stuck in throne rooms and presiding over the judgment of souls.

"It’s been three hundred years and that’s the best you can come up with?" Sam asked. His pulse did _not_ speed up because James was here again. He had sworn after James’ last disappearance that would be the end of their arrangement, decrees from On High truly damned. He knew even as he made that vow, it was a lie.

Rhodes was somewhere laughing at him. He could hear it in his mind. The ever taunting reminder of falling for serpents with gilded tongues. James was never in Eden though, unlike Rhodes, unlike Sam, but he _was_ created out of the essence of Temptation. 

James took off his sunglasses and slid onto the barstool next to him. “It’s good to see you, Sam.” He leaned back and took a long look, eyes lingering on Sam’s backside. “Where’d you tuck the wings?”

"Where’d you stick my scepter?" Sam asked.

Jams frowned. “Is your memory so gone that you forgot our last night outside of Barcelona? I told you I had need of it, and you said I could take whatever I wanted.”

"James," Sam warned.

“You were there performing your duty. Samael, Angel of Death, Guide of those who do not fear that Valley or that Shadow. I was there to take only the willing who wanted another fleeting grasp at life. You do not recall that sweet grass on the mountainside where you dropped us?” James leaned closer, lips hovering over his neck. He glanced up at Sam. “I’ve missed your taste.”

Sam felt the tingle at his back and knew how close he was to a true reveal in this bar of a backwater town. It was the cost of loving a demon who always made him lose control. He usually never slipped from his disguise unless James was around, who preferred him with all wings revealed. His soul remembered the pleaded inquires James had made, lips stained with Sam’s blood and eyes wide with pleasure, to show his true self. What was once a learned habit had become instinct. Sam gripped the bar and reinforced his mental shields.

“James,” he warned again.

"Not here," James agreed. "They haven’t earned the right to see your true form." His hand hovered over where the highest arch of Sam’s right wing would’ve been. "I have a sanctuary not far from here. It’s safe for us both. Neutral ground.” He dropped his hand. “I would like you to see my home.”

Sam frowned. “You made a home on neutral ground? That would weaken your power.”

James shrugged. “Come home with me, and I’ll show you the artist I found. He’s the reason I stole-- _borrowed_ \-- your scepter.”

“Did you turn him?” Sam asked. James had always wanted a family, but an Angel of Death was never without his duty.

James laughed. “I never turn any but the willing, and he would never concede. He is a Muse, though he didn’t realize it when I stumbled upon him in the streets. His parents were taken by one of your brothers-in-arms before they had a chance to inform him of his blood rite. I had to get to him before Alexander claimed him for the lowest depths of the Below. Only a scepter such as yours would’ve warned such a creature off.”

“You couldn't have returned it in all this time?”

“But then there would have been no plausible reason to seek me out, or for you to be charged with finding me. The only reason Riley and Natasha haven’t taken my head before now is because of you. They assumed I broke our alliance. I never told them the truth, even though Natasha can be very persuasive. The only ones who know I had the scepter were you, your higher-ups, me, and Alexander.”

Sam had wondered why none of the minions of Below had come to taunt him over losing a scepter that could take life away from any creature, to having essentially failed in his duty as a Guardian of Death. Rhodes had been the only one to offer an explanation: in all technicalities James had a spouse’s claim to sharing Sam’s power.

“Why find me now?” Sam asked.

“Peggy’s tired of running. Steve’s tired of running.” James face lost its spark for one, quick, sudden moment. “I fear I’m just tired.”

“After three thousand years now you’re tired?”

James slid off his barstool. “Perhaps—perhaps I just need a second wind.”

“You did not—”

“Samael,” James said. No one else ever used Sam’s full name these days. No one else said it the way James always had; as if it had the power of invocation in each letter, as if the sound gave him strength.

Sam stood. He left the money for his tab and a hefty tip on the bar. He took the hand James held out for him. Neither of them had ever been wholly good or wholly evil, and that’s why their alliance had been approved so long. It was deemed good business for the Greater Balance, and they’d fought alongside each other through history as often as they’d been there to barter over the living and the dead. It was an easy choice to make. He took that outstretched hand.

If he wrapped a wing around James’ shoulder to shield him from the cool winds, no one was there to see. No one was there to tell.

**********

In the beginning—because that’s how these stories always start—there was the Greater Balance. The Balance kept the spirit worlds mostly hidden from mortal eyes. Earth, at least as humans had known it since their creation, was always more of a large transportation terminal than a place to call home. It was a layover from one world to the next and the Balance made sure that each different religion, or creature, or entity could pass without much hassle. It only worked because neither Good nor Evil held the upper hand. The scales were still pretty much balanced, despite the increased press coverage to the contrary. Revolution always brought chaos, even if it was tiny ripples from all corners of the globe changing things one at a time. Despite what some political pundits liked to preach from their public relations pulpits, no one devil had the world in its grasp.

The Balance assured this. There were bad angels and good demons and so many who were indifferent or without allegiance. There were extremists on both ends, and they all had their followings, Lucifer the most famous of the lot, but the Balance had always taken steps to keep the scales evenly weighed. 

The unions between the various agents of Good, Evil, and Indifferent helped keep the Balance in ultimate power. The unions were never forced upon anyone; it was and remained a volunteer mission for what was essentially marriage. Samael had been lonely back then, and he worried about it eating at him, turning him into something he feared. So he took the chance to meet with a representative from outside the Choirs. 

James—though he was Iakobos at the time—greeted him with a sly smile full of sharp teeth and eyes that looked far too human and mortal in the face of a creature he knew survived on sips of soul, blood, and the very energy of life. He could feed with the simple touch of fingertips to a chosen victim’s skin, but then as now he preferred the visceral reaction of a willing prey’s body gone taut as he sunk his teeth into their skin. 

James held no loyalty to either side. He called Earth his home and was more invested in its continued existence than he did for which group held the most power. Samael, as the Guardian Angel of Death, truly held no loyalty either, except for the souls he helped guide. With their union Samael would continue to guide the Saved, the Damned, and the Waiting while James offered a chance for life on Earth beyond death. He handled the other creatures like him, the lesser ones who became the common vampires, the ghosts who only lingered in memory and dissipating form and emotion, the Incubi and Succubae, and the Muses who could inspire all parts of the Balance and had to be coaxed out of their mortal bodies into their greater forms. It required a death which, understandably, left many fearful and confused, and wandering down the wrong paths and into the wrong arms without greater guidance or protection. 

Sam could understand why James would want to protect an orphan child destined to be a Muse, and to protect Sam from Alexander's reach, but Sam was never one who asked for our sought protection. It was his destiny to guide. He was still learning how to lean.

“There,” James said as he pointed to a modest house set far back from the main road. 

“No villa?” Sam asked.

“I’ve learned the value of being inconspicuous. Steve is a modest Muse besides. Determined too. Creates his own work and everything. It’s better if the suspicious look to the empty, fancy mansion we keep in his name rather than our true home.”

“And who occupies that fancy mansion? Your legion of followers?”

James kept silent until they were firmly on the ground. He’d rested his hand on the closest of Sam’s red and gold wings and warmed it until the ice fell off. 

“Better?” James asked. 

Sam shifted his shoulders and expanded his wings, flapping them once to loosen the last bits of ice from their flight. He allowed himself to smile as James face took on the that look of pure wonder. 

“They haven’t changed,” Sam said.

“There is no reason to justify admiration of what you find beautiful,” James said. He tilted his head as if he could hear a voice on the wind. “We have a guest. One from _your_ legions of followers.”

“Natasha won’t harm you much,” Sam said. “You _do_ owe her a pound of flesh after that plague outbreak in Venice.”

James frowned. “For the last time, I had _nothing_ to do with that one. It’s the sea. Look to Namor and blame him.” He held out his hand for Sam’s own and took a deep breath when the offer was accepted, the arrogant façade cracking once again. “We have much to discuss, and I hope it can lead to understanding, but I’m still grateful you’re here even if it’s just to retrieve your scepter.”

“It was never just about that,” Sam said. He tightened his grip on James’ hand. “We _do_ have much to discuss, at length, and I will yell at you for your stupidity, but knowing you means knowing that most of those actions are born out of good intentions.”

“Road to Hell and all that,” James said. “That’s always been my path.”

Sam used his free hand to cup James’ cheek. “Don’t deny all the good you’ve done, even by inadvertent accidents.” He paused, wanting to scan James’ mind, and knowing he never would without permission. “What’s happened in the past three centuries?” 

“We have much to discuss,” James repeated. “Now let’s get back to the house before Natasha burns something and Riley eats the entire contents of my kitchen. Never full, that one. Didn’t he eat a herd of sheep one time?”

“He roped them together to have a soft sleeping surface, but he prefers cow for food if given the choice,” Sam said.

"And this is the angel you challenged the Below for?" James asked. "If only Orpheus had your faith." 

Sam tucked James into his side again as they walked up a path of decorated stones and into the house. "We both know there are reasons in all realms of all worlds to Fall or to Rise." He shielded James' face with his wing as a bright flood light switched on as they met the boundary of yard and patio. "We've both done the same for each other. Faith was only a small part of it.

"Two sides and a balanced scale," James said as he unlocked the door. "That was their intention from the start and that's how we shall remain."

Sam rested his finger over the steady pulse of James' wrist and squeezed. "That is not _all_ we are, were, or will ever be."


End file.
